GRAND THEATRE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 417, 29 December 1932, Page 3

GRAND THEATRE

TO-NIGHT. Rebecca, the imaginate little girl whose name came out of Ivanhoe and who lived at Sunnybrook Farm, has long been the favourite role of tlxe grcatest stars of tbe staga. For the modern Fox sound version of the irnmortal classic, to be shown at th'e Grand Theatre to-night, Marion Nixon, whose personality has carried her to new screen heights, was chosen to portray the chai'acter that to xnillions is symholic of optimism. DirecLor Alfred Santell re-created the renowned Farm of Sunnybrook in the present production just as it appeared in the p'ages of tbe original book, in the picturesque sleepy farming country near Santa Cruz, California. There, far away from the artificialities of studio life_ and in fluence, the eixtire cast lived for weeks enacting the romantic drama that has captured the imaginations of xnillions. The plot deals with the experiences of an imaginative, impulsive girl who leaves her beloved Sunnybrook to live with her elderly maiden aunts, the very pillars of respectability in a Maine village. Her penchant for adopting everybody's troubles wins the immediate disapproval of the aunts hut strikes quickly at the heart and sympathy of Dr. Adam Ladd who befriends her from her first day in the village. Bellamy Ilas Male Lead Ralph Bellamy, tall, hlue-eyed leaduig man of many recent Fox suecesses, portrays the kindly, understanding character of Dr. Ladd, while Mae Marsh, who recently renewed her screen career in "Over the Hill," is seen as Aunt Jane, the younger and more sympathetic of the two aunts. Aunt Mirandia, whose hard-shelled surface of New England reserve is the last to he won over by Rebecca's irresistible personality, is faithfully enacted hy Louise Closser Hale in what is said to he her hest performance to date. Other characters of note in the picture are Alan Hale, as the eccentric radical;' Sarah Padden, the kindliearted woman who wants to adopt the child; Ronald Harris, lovahle two-year-old who nearly steals the picture in his first screen role, and scores of others.